


the bet

by amyraudenfelds



Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: F/F, Lena Luthor/Lucy Lane - Freeform, Minor Kara Danvers/Jimmy Olsen, doctor!lena and lawyer!kara ayyyy, exactly ten years of pining lmao, lots of pining, minor parents including j'onn :/, no mon-el bc i ain't abt to play y'all like that, paging dr. jawline dr. jawline report for duty, slowburn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-07-05
Updated: 2017-07-05
Packaged: 2018-11-23 14:03:08
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,239
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11403927
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/amyraudenfelds/pseuds/amyraudenfelds
Summary: AU. Lena Luthor and Kara Danvers were the best of childhood friends, but that changed when Lena started to develop romantic feelings and Kara didn't reciprocate. Now, ten years have passed and Kara is faced with the challenge of living in a big city where she doesn't know anyone, or well, she knows one person. And that happens to be Lena Luthor. After many drinks a certain evening, Lena proposes a bet to show Kara she is completely over her. They need to make their respective coworkers fall in love with them in five dates. But things get a little complicated when Kara catches herself thinking about her roommate more than she should. In ways that she shouldn't.





	1. Prologue

**TEN YEARS AGO**

Lena wakes up with the birds chirping outside, while the morning sky goes from purple to blue. Except she didn’t sleep, not at all. It felt _wrong_ to sleep, whenever she shut her eyes she pictured Kara painted on the insides of her lids. And there it was again. The pain, the longing. The failure.

Lena had just turned fifteen the other night. She had planned to tell Kara. Tell Kara about how she felt. It wasn’t easy. It scared her to death. Being in love was terrifying enough, and being in love with a _girl_ was just a shot in the dark. Especially Lena, especially having been raised the way she had been. But she amounted up courage enough to tell Kara she had been in love with her.

She didn’t know for how long, but one day she just woke up and it was as clear as it was ever going to be. Maybe it was the fact that Kara had been there for her all along. Maybe. She felt dumb when she realized it, because it was so obvious. It was so vital, and then…

The _rejection_. She had been replaying the words on her head over and over again. _I love you too, Lena. But not like that._ The way Kara looked at her – with pity that she couldn’t reciprocate whatever Lena felt. As if it was paining her that she embarked in everything with her best friend, but she couldn’t do that this time. And even in Lena’s blind rage at herself and the resentment towards Kara she inevitably felt, she couldn’t bring herself to mad at her best friend.

 _Why_ would anyone love her anyway? Most of all Kara. The kind, beautiful Karma, who traded lunches with her and put effort in making Lena smile when she was in a bad mood. Kara who looked gorgeous at fifteen and had all the boys pining for her. That Kara.

So why would she remotely be attracted to ordinary Lena? Lena who liked to stick around her house and never exercise, and liked to watch Twin Peaks and The X-Files and still hadn’t even had her first kiss. She was _pathetic_. Kara was right in not reciprocating.

 

* * *

 

It takes Lena two months to regain confidence enough to attempt speaking to Kara again. She avoids every try at conversation Kara makes at her, because she’s ashamed. Because she thinks Kara is doing these things out of pity. And when Lena finally establishes a conversation, is to communicate she’s going away.

It’s definitive. She can’t stick around anymore. The whole place is ruined for her – it was before, but now even her happy place was ruined. She tells Kara that she’s moving, and at first, the girl takes it for a joke. But then, reality falls over them, and it’s all so concrete. Ten years of friendship, thrown away in the blink of a night. It’s all Lena’s fault, but she’s immature and she’s hurting and she just wants to get away.

And when the opportunity presents itself, it’s set. She’s going away to a board school. It’s on the outskirts of Vermont. She took a look at the pictures in the brochure. It’s quiet and it looks like it’s always autumn over there. She won’t be able to have a cellphone with her at all times, let alone a computer. It’s perfect. Her mom thinks it’s a tad bit too stern, and for her mother, a _tad bit too stern_ speaks volumes about how strict the place actually is. Her father thinks she’ll give up on this idea. Her brother Lex begs her not to go. But she _insists_. It’s all set.

When she says her goodbyes to Kara, it’s all words left unsaid and angry lumps on her throat and holding back tears. This is Lena giving up on trying to fix things here, this is Lena giving up on Kara. Her best friend, and who she considered to be her soul mate. She doesn’t look back at her best friend. She keeps going forward, she doesn’t want to think about what she’s doing. And somehow that works.

When her parents put her things in the car and she enters the backseat, she doesn’t look back at the manor she’s lived all these years. She doesn’t look back at the Danvers’ house, or her school. She’s focused on her own reflection in the car’s window. And she makes a promise to herself: She’s never going to feel pathetic ever again.

 


	2. Chapter 1

**PRESENT DAY**

Kara Danvers stretches out an angry hand to set off her alarm. That’s usually the way her mornings begin. But this one has something special about it. As soon as she regain her senses and becomes more awake, she smells pancakes downstairs. Suddenly, waking up gets easier, and she’s out of the bed and into the shower. The hot water on her back, practically welcoming her to another day. And a big one, that is.

When she gets downstairs, Eliza is practically fuming with excitement. She puts a plate full of pancakes stacked upon pancakes in front of Kara when she takes a sit. Her smile is large and full of pride.

“Good morning, honey. Pancakes and some detox juice?” She suggests and Kara nods, her stomach reminding her of how hungry she is.

Jeremiah pops up not too long later, his face is almost a perfect mask of her mother’s. He’s smiling widely. He sits down by her side, his big yet gentle hand taps on her back while Karma swallows a portion of her breakfast.

“Big day today, huh?” He murmurs excitedly.

“Yes. You could just, maybe act like you’re less nervous for this than I am?” She jokes. But underneath, she knows they are nervous. It’s the first time Kara is going to move to live alone. She’s twenty-four, it’s due time. They first had this experience when Alex moved out. But it wasn’t something you could completely prepare for. The thing is when Alex moved, she did so to a city twenty minutes away. Now Kara, she’s not gonna live in a cramped up but decent apartment in Midvale. She’s going big. Moving away to National City. She had to take a plane to come and go, and that’s why she couldn’t wait to move.

Her mom sits on the chair by her other side, and rests her hand on Kara’s arm. “We’re just really proud of you. This is all you, Kara. And we’re very happy to see you’ve grown into a successful person.” Kara’s heart is touched by her mom’s words. She’s been trying to draw back the tears that stay at bay whenever she gets emotional about leaving, she keeps them on a short leash and under control. So she manages to shoot a smile back at her mother, but it falters and her mom notices it. “But what matters the most is that you’re happy. If you feel like you want to come back, we’ll be right here.”

Her mother winks and Kara feels a rapture of affection towards her, hugging her tight. She doesn’t initiate hugs often, but she needs to right now. Her parents and Alex are a constant fixture in her life, and without them, she’ll probably panic from months on end but surely enough she’ll pull through. It doesn’t mean she won’t miss them. She’ll miss their talks about science and their fascination with the microorganisms. Not to mention the late cups of hot cocoa her mother makes whenever she’s had a rough day. They are good people, honest people. Supportive people. And she loves them into oblivion.

But she’s a functional adult now, with a real job. An actual real job in a lawyering firm in National City, and she has the chance to be successful. So that is pretty good. She is a twenty-four year-old with a job that pays well enough so she has money to sustain herself and have a little fun. She’s living the dream, really.

When they leave, they pass by the neighborhood and the house is there. _Her_ house. Lena Luthor’s house. Her former best friend hasn’t talked to her in ages, not since Kara had not reciprocated Lena’s feelings. She just had never seen Lena that way. She loved Lena to bits, fuck, she missed Lena in the present day. But she never spoke to Lena again.

She knew how Lena had been faring, since her mother and Lilian – Lena’s mother, had not stopped talking to each other. It’s true that Mrs. Luthor was a bit difficult, and Kara still had her reservations against the woman for all the past backhanded comments made by her about Lena, but Lilian was the CEO of a pharmaceutical company and Eliza and Jeremiah did develop some products for her company.

So yes, she knew Lena was fine and she knew she wasn’t living on Vermont anymore, not since high school, at least. Lilian told her mom Lena got accepted into Harvard and when they were young, Lilian never seemed to be too proud of Lena’s accomplishments but even she would have to be proud of this one. Her daughter was an intern at a great hospital, and Lilian said Lena had been thinking about pursuing a career in neurosurgery. Which made her even more proud, understandably.

Lena was brilliant – or _is_ , anyway – since when they were kids. Kara would be completely at awe with the things the girl did. She was fascinated by Lena’s very existence. She was so smart and so daring, and that to Kara was some sort of an accomplishment.

She sighs and imagines Lena as her manor passes by, the fifteen year-old Lena, her kind green eyes framed by big, thick glasses and the nose that Lena abhorred but that Kara found so fitting and pretty and so Lena. Everything about her was so genuine. She pictures the Lena with braces, the Lena that didn’t like to exercise and felt extremely uncomfortable because she was a little bit chubby. Even though these things didn’t matter to Kara, in fact, she found them all incredible, because they had amounted up to form Lena and Lena was incredible.

She doesn’t even know how Lena looks anymore, or how she sounds. Or how her laugh sounds and if the sides of her eyes crinkle when she smiles nowadays.

It is a reasonable assumption to say that Kara thinks about Lena at least twice a day, her heart heavy in her chest. Since Lena went awol on her, Kara hasn’t had any other best friends. What was the use of having one when you know you already lost that person that mattered so much to you? It’s not like they will fill out the hole the person left, and she didn’t want them to. Their friendship was sacred, and the burning hole on Kara’s chest that popped up every time she thought about Lena was sacred, too.

But she wouldn’t allow herself to think about this now. Not when she was saying goodbye to her parents and Alex (who met her at the airport), hugging them tight and them wishing her luck, not when the flight attendant at the gate tells her to have a good flight, and definitely not when she sits down on her window seat and sees the town getting smaller and smaller until it disappears amongst the clouds.

(She thinks about Lena anyway, though).

 

* * *

 

 

When Kara arrives, she takes a cab to her apartment, or what it _says_ it’s her apartment. Because it doesn’t look like her apartment at all. She has seen the pictures her real estate agent sent her, and this is not it. Because the apartment in the pictures looks new and reformed and this looks…

“Like _garbage_.” She exhales angrily as she paces around the apartment. There’s infiltrations everywhere and the floor squeaks and everything is just wrong. She’s pissed at the situation, and even more pissed at herself because how the fuck did she not see it coming. She was a lawyer for fuck’s sake. And someone would pay for this.

She pants in annoyance and disgust at the place, carrying her luggage inside. She has to go up all the three flights of stairs because the elevator is broken since 2007. There are stains in the wooden floor and an old rug in the corner of the room. She thinks about throwing it out, but callouses on it were suspiciously moving, so she just solves it is better to let it be and she would call someone to take it out for her. The janitor or the Firemen or the National Guard.

Once she settles and she’s sure her luggage is safe inside that shithole she calls an apartment, she closes the door angrily behind her and descends the three flight of stairs, because she desperately needs to vent with someone. And that someone is her older sister.

The things Alex says on the phone she’ll do to the landlord are so ghastly and haunting that Kara prefers to not imagine even a third of it.

Kara evens her sister out, even though she’s still pretty mad herself. “Yeah, well, don’t worry Alex, they messed with the wrong person because I’m sure as hell suing the hell out of everyone that has to do with this.”

_“Kara. I will gut them with my own teeth. I am sharpening them as we speak.”_

Kara finds it hard not to snort at that even though she’s too angry to be appreciate the sheer comedic value of the moment. She’s tired from a long trip and on top of everything, she has to live in a place that probably has all kind of STD’s lying around, decorating the apartment.

_“You can always book a hotel room. Doesn’t need to be fancy. Just until you find a new place to live.”_ Alex suggests. She’s blind in her rage but if anything, her sister is practical through and through.

Kara ponders it for a minute, with her tongue stuck on her cheek and shrugs to no one in particular. “Yeah.” She agrees. “That is a good idea. I’m gonna do that because I’m not living with rats and cockroaches. I’m so not into this whole dirty thing.”

_“How are you feeling?”_

“Yeah, I mean,” She grumbles. “As good as it’s gonna get.”

_“We’ll find a way out of this. One that doesn’t particularly involves committing murder, but hey, I will, if I have to.”_

“Okay, Alex.” She lets go of her frustration slowly, and she feels infinitesimally better. “I’m gonna go see if I can find a place to stay. Thank you for helping me through this crisis.”

_“Talk to you later, sis.”_

She chuckles. “Bye, Alex.”

Kara finishes the call and looks around. Her neighborhood is quite decent. There are a few shops and a few good buildings – she resents for not renting an apartment in them – and she settles for going for a coffee. There’s a nice looking coffee shop just two streets away.

When she opens the door, she feels welcomed by the smell of roasted coffee and it’s warm inside. She sits on a stool and orders a plain black coffee and while the barista goes away to bring her order, she checks her phone. It’s not like there’s anything there to keep her attention, she just does it because it’s a habit. And also not to look like she’s foolish and alone. Which she is. She doesn’t know anyone in National City. Has no idea how she’s gonna do this.

And then someone calls her.

“Kara? Kara Danvers?” The voice is gentle and quiet and there’s a lot of familiarity between Kara and this voice. Her heart stops and does a one-eighty when she turns around to look at who’s calling her. And there she is.

Lena. Her friend Lena who she hasn’t seen in ten years, who never spoke to her ever again. Lena, the chubby, bubbly girl Kara absolutely loved to death. But the Lena she sees now has nothing to do with the Lena she sees when she closes her eyes.

“Oh, my God!” Kara exclaims, standing up from the stool to take a better look. “Oh, my God, Lena. How long!”

Lena smiles. It’s not the smile she was used to picture when she thinks of Lena. It’s a half-smile that doesn’t show teeth, but it warms Kara’s heart anyway. Kara can’t help but notice she’s taller than Lena. When they went their separate ways, Lena was taller. She has lost the glasses too, and if there’s one thing Kara can say stayed the same, it’s the gentle look Lena throws her. The liquid green of Lena’s kind eyes. Kara can’t help but give the girl a once-over, Lena is dressed in blue scrubs and has a lab coat thrown over her arm, a name tag is hanging from the scrubs’ pocket with her name and her picture. She’s changed so much. All the baby fat is long gone, revealing a jaw line that Kara had never noticed her former best friend possessed. She’s slender and has her chin up and she’s without a doubt the most gorgeous person Kara has ever seen.

(Not that she wasn’t before.)

But she looks just so _adult_ and – Kara is not ashamed to say it – so _hot_. It puts a smile on Kara’s lips.

“Or should I call you doctor Luthor?”

Lena dismisses her with a hand gesture and approaches carefully, points to the stool she was previously sitting so Kara can reclaim her spot and sits next to it. “It’s just Lena. Or wreck, or whatever.” She asks the barista for the same thing Kara did. “I just ended a 48 hour shift. I look like the corpse bride’s less fortunate twin.”

Kara can’t help but laugh. It’s effortless and it comes out as if it had been waiting forever to pop. Like it’s just been stuck there, on Kara’s throat. Lena is caught by surprise and chuckles back, like they used to do when they were teenagers. Their steamy coffees are waiting to be drank on the cupboard. Kara takes hers, analyzes the cup for a second or two thinking about something to say.

“So,” She begins, dragging the word. “How are things?”

Lena nods inconclusively and shrugs. “Fine, I guess. I’m working at a hospital, as you can see…”

“Neurosurgery, right?” Kara interjects a little bit too eager, which earns her a suspicious look from Lena mixed up with a half-smile. (She only half-smiles now? Kara kind of misses the huge, ear to ear smiles the girl used to give her. Smiles that reached her eyes and crinkled the corners of it. She knows she has no right to miss that smile.)

“Yeah. How do you know?”

“Lilian still, uh… My mom told me so.” She offers, which makes sense to Lena because she drops the suspicious look and sips her coffee.

“How about you? What are you doing?”

“I just got a job here. In a lawyering firm as a lawyer.” Kara curses herself, she is running her mouth way too often. She knows she is making this weird. Like they are ex-girlfriends who are really trying to be civil about their breakup. The thought makes something twist in Kara’s stomach, she’s not sure why. It’s just really weird and she doesn’t think about this any longer.

“Oh, so you’re living here?”

“I arrived in today. I start on Monday. I actually, uh, I live two streets away from this place. St. Marks.”

Lena nods and it’s almost like a thumbs up. It’s an okay neighborhood. That’s what people told her, anyway. She doesn’t know about National City, never even has been here before. It’s just all a crazy leap of faith. Like something was adding up so she could be here.

A moment passes between the both of them, and Lena is smiling softly and being polite, but everything is awkward, mostly because Kara is awkward. “Well, I’ve been awake for about two days right now,” Lena begins and Kara can see the evidences of it as she speaks, pale purple circles under her eyes. “I should probably get going and try to get some sleep. We should see each other again, sometime. I’ve been here for longer, so if you need any help, don’t hesitate to give me a call.” She picks up a napkin and a pen from her pocket and writes up a number, gives it to Kara.

Kara could totally use help. She’s absolutely lost. “Maybe you can help me with something now?”

Lena agrees without a thought, solicitous. “Yeah, anything.”

“What’s the best hotel around this area? And uh, one that doesn’t overcharge.” She says the last part lower. She’s not ashamed to say that she’s not a big spender right now, because she’ll probably have to stay from days on end on this hotel and she’s trying to begin her independent life without crippling debt. Sue her.

Lena chuckles but indulges her. “There are a couple, I’ll tell you where they are.” She goes contemplative for a moment, looking at Kara’s eyes with a puzzled expression, and Kara blushes. “Do you- You didn’t come here without having rented an apartment, right?”

“No! No.” Kara objects, partially offended that Lena thought she could be that naïve. But again, she was naïve. She sighs. “I got conned.” Kara admits.

“How?!”

“I rented this apartment that looked great in the pictures my real estate agent sent me. I get here and the place is well, let’s just say we don’t need UV-A lamps to see the stains.” She grimaces, but Lena has a hint of a smile. “I would clean up and stay there but there’s this old rug with callouses that _move_.” Kara trembles with disgust at the thought. “So I’m trying not to get rabies, you know.”

Lena snorts. And then she fully erupts with laughter. And even though Kara knows Lena is laughing at her decisions, it doesn’t matter that much because she’s smiling her smile. It reaches her eyes and the corners are crinkled and the green is all liquid, and for a moment they look like they are fifteen again.

“I’m glad you find that amusing.” Kara comments bitterly, but the smile on her face betrays her. She can’t help but feel giddy because she’s made Lena laugh and it’s been forever since that happened.

“I’m so sorry, Kara.” Lena pants in between laughs but she manages to control it, and just smiles at Kara largely. She sees Lena has lost the braces and her smile is even more dazzling than it was before. The girl stretches out a hand and touches Kara’s arm in reassurance. “It’s just – It sounds like a lot. I’m so sorry. I’ll explain it to you how you get to the hotel.”

Lena pauses for a bit, considering something. “Actually, you know what, you could stay at my place – you know, if it’s okay with you. I have a guest room that I never use and it’s quite decent.” She shrugs.

Kara is moved by the proposition, and Lena looks at her like it’s no big deal, but part of Kara’s brain wonders if she’s just trying to put on a façade. “I don’t want to give you any trouble.”

“I’m barely at home. I’m an intern, Kara. I live at the hospital more than I do at my house.” She has an easy smile on her lips, like she’s not totally stepping over any boundaries Lena herself constructed in the past.

“Are you sure?”

“Mm-hmm. Where’s your firm?”

“First Avenue, I think?”

“That’s great, it’s minutes away from where I live, actually.”

“Oh, Lena, thank you but,” Kara stutters, wondering what she’s going to say next. And then she goes to the wrong thing. “It would be awkward, I think.”

She knows she’s messed up big time. But to her surprise, Lena laughs.

“It won’t be awkward unless we make it awkward. Kara, come on, I mean, no offense but I’m not fifteen anymore. I’m over my school girl crush on you for a hundred years, now. But if you don’t want to stay, it’s totally fine.” She says in all niceness, but Kara gets a little bit offended. She doesn’t know why.

She ponders the pros and cons of this, and the only real con is that things could be weird because of something that happened ten years ago. And Lena seems completely cool with it now. Well, Lena seems completely cool now. Everything about her screams coolness, to the way she holds herself to how she speaks. Lena used to stutter a lot when she felt unease, and she hasn’t stuttered once. She had three options: she could go back to her apartment and have to take an anti-tetanic shot the next day, or she could sleep in a hotel and pay for it every day, or she could stay at Lena’s. Who she has known during a good part of her life and she knows she won’t be alone in this new city.

What the fuck she has to lose anyway?

“I think I’m gonna take up on your offer.” Kara says, allowing herself to smirk. Lena lifts her cup of coffee, mimicking a toast.

“Welcome to National City, Danvers.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> wowie, so this one has been a long time coming but i finally got around to writing it. i'm so excited to start this, honestly, and i hope you all enjoy this crazy rom-commy story i got cooking up bc we all deserve wlw romcoms. and supercorp? what lesbian icons. so if you guys have liked the story pls leave a kudo or a comment or if you wanna just talk, i'm duhnvers on tumblr. come talk to me so we can make fun of mon-el together!!!


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